Knife's Edge
by aimorai
Summary: This was written for the Secret Swooper challenge on the livejournal community swooping is bad, utilizing the PC of another swooper, renoxrayneftw. So, happy holidays to her and everyone else! Cullen/Surana


Title: Knife's Edge  
author: aimorai  
Word count: 1,910  
Rating: Safe  
Focus: Cullen and Dalish Mage PC

Happy Holidays to renoxrayneftw, my secret swooper gift to you! I hope I did your little mage justice :) Enjoy your story!

* * *

The Harrowing chamber was as silent as a grave. One wouldn't know if it was day or night outside.

Cullen privately hoped that the sun had set and the moon was rising. Nighttime was _her_ time, and he would wish her every advantage.

The ring of Templars stood vigilant. Watching him. Watching _her_ with him, limp in his arms. Cullen was trying not to sweat or betray emotion. She was as delicate to touch as she'd always appeared; elven, waif-like and soft, her head thrown back, her dark hair falling under his arms, black as ink. Beneath pale lids her eyes moved in quick jerks, the only sign of life amongst her stillness. Sometimes her body would twitch against him, and he would swallow his ridiculous reaction to soothe her, as if she were having a simple bad dream.

Some part of his mind howled in laughter at him and reminded him that this was likely the closest he would ever get to her. He could only touch her if he was supposed to kill her.

_Her_ and her daring, pale eyes. Cullen had come to think of her as a creature of night and shadow and dreams- the woman never slept. And she was never where she was supposed to be. Not even the night before her Harrowing.

_The sound of bare feet her been both soft and unmistakable in the echoing halls of the tower._

_She never wore shoes. It was always her. And it always seemed to be he who had to find her in the middle of the night. She would flit between the library and the hallways, practicing, always practicing when there were the fewest eyes to be watching. Sometimes, only his. That's how it was then._

_Cullen lived for those dreaded nights._

_The air had crackled and her eyes had glowed in success, and she'd looked at him. Something about her was always in motion, even when she was still. Her hair caught breezes that didn't exist. She spoke._

_"How did that look, Cullen?"_

_Somehow she was there, right there, in front of him, and asking him a question. Looking right at him, right -through- him._

_"Um."_

_"Just um? Well, that's no good at all. I was trying to impress you."_

_"...Um." He forgot how to speak, and she was smiling, and she was up on her bare toes in the night to get closer to his face, her lips curving upwards ever more with her increase in height - but she was small, so small, and he'd have to lift her for them to meet eye to eye. She was still smiling. Her lips looked like wine. _

_"You shouldn't be here."_

_She'd bubbled out a laugh then, challenging and cocksure, circling him, with her bare feet and her thin robe and her hair and her eyes._

_"Are you going to turn me in?"_

_He shifted. His armor felt tight and ungainly._

_"Or... perhaps you'd like to punish me yourself? What do they do to evil mages caught out of bed when they are supposed to be sleeping?"_

_"I...don't know."_

_"You don't know? Well then I suppose you'll have to make something up."_

_Cullen blinked, slowly and tried to keep his eyes on her. She kept prowling around him as if she were going to pounce - some kind of Dalish... hunter... instinct? She kept going on about the Dalish and how she would rejoin them when she could, in half-voiced whispers that he pretended not to overhear. It was almost heretical. She was an apprentice of the Circle now. She couldn't be an apostate. "Tomorrow is your Harrowing. You should be resting."_

_She'd grinned, continuing her slow orbit around him, feet making soft smacking sounds against the stone floor like a heartbeat. "Is The Harrowing my punishment? I am not afraid."_

_"Most apprentices are."_

_"Do you believe I'm like most apprentices?"_

_She paused in front of him, tilting her head to one side, her eyes flashing, almost in a temper. The incline brought the light from the braziers to glow along the skin where her self-applied tattoo coursed its way reverently along one cheek and her jawbone - some symbol of the Dalish gods. She'd looked it up herself, along with how to make ink, and had had it applied by that other apprentice she always ran around with - that Jowan._

_That was another late-night ritual. He'd watched, unsure. She wasn't the first mage who'd gotten a tattoo, but something about it felt almost... wrong. He hadn't recognized the symbols and he remembered thinking that maybe it was all some sort of crazy blood magic ritual and they'd both start dancing naked any second._

_He didn't want to think about the images that had haunted him for days after the thought. He remembered only that the Reverend Sisters in the Chantry ended up being suspicious of his sudden extra devotions the following week._

_She was constantly walking the knife's edge between acceptable and bad behavior. That night, and this night, and all nights._

_She stared at him for who knew how long until he realized that she'd asked him a question, here and now. "Um...I suppose... that doesn't matter. You are still an apprentice."_

_She scoffed a little bit, sparks flying from her eyes._

_"I don't even know why I bother talking to you. All you spout are the same lines Gregoir would say. Except less interesting. You follow me around and watch. Don't you have anything to say to me?" She crossed her arms underneath her chest and stood as if she were eight feet tall, foot tapping impatiently on the stone._

_It had taken all of Cullen's training in discipline to prevent heat rising to his face and making it as flaming red as his hair. Maybe she knew. Maybe the other mages talked? Or... the sisters in the Chantry? It was a mortifying thought but...despite how he wished to the contrary, he knew that the only thing worse than her knowing would be if she never spoke to him again, like this._

_"No. I mean. You can uh... talk to me... anytime. Um. That was a nice spell."_

_She blinked once, twice, and then broke into a peal of laughter that resounded like a bell and echoed down the hallway, fit to wake the dead._

_"Oh, Cullen, Mythal protect you! More Templars need to make me laugh. Need to be more laughs in this place in general, other than when someone sets themselves on fire, don't you think?" She'd grinned and come forward like liquid moonlight, standing within a few inches of him and peeking through lashes, her voice lowered in a conspiratory whisper._

_"I know you're not like the others. You've... seen me do things that would make Gregoir tan my hide. But you never say anything. Why?" Her usual brash manner was gone, and while the question was straightforward and her eyes indicated she clearly wished to know the answer, he got a cherished peek of the woman stripped of her bravado._

_It was those moments he loved. When she was absorbed in studying, the corners of her lips turned slightly upwards. Or when she watched the youngest apprentices play, running amok through the tower. When she listened to another apprentice's hopes and wants and fears and quickly wiped away tears. She told them all it wasn't worth it to cry for anyone; tears should be reserved for love and death -- and since mages weren't allowed to love, and no one was dying under her watch, they were worthless. It was cruel, in a way, but it always seemed to work. She never said the right thing and always said what a person actually needed to hear. Always militantly in control._

_He realized she'd asked him a question. Again. And he didn't know the answer. As usual._

_Her smile slowly grew, and that didn't help at all with thinking and answering questions._

_"Um..." He started, and she echoed with an 'Um' in nearly the same breath, almost giggling as she stood up on her tiptoes, and this was all entirely against the rules and she was so close and a mage a mage a mage... but also a woman. And it was a dream that her hand came up high to rifle back through the hair above his ear, and completely not reality at all when she whispered her thanks and she knew, she had to know what she was doing. Still in control._

_"I... we... need to go. Back to chambers. Now..Um. Now."_

_And he realized how stupid it was to say that as her grin widened and she let loose another one of those unreal laughs, all mischievous now, dancing back and twirling, her robes floating out from her form in slow-motion._

_"In dreams perhaps, Cullen. In dreams."_

It was all he could do to convince himself that the whole conversation had in fact been just another dream of her. In the harsh light of reality, she was just another mage.

Reality was omnipresent in the feel of the blade he had brandished against her pale throat. She walked on his knife's edge in the thrall of the Fade. For once, _he_ had control over _her._

She started to breathe more deeply and her face contorted as if in pain. Gregoir's voice loomed, tired and heavy, over his shoulder and the older Templar didn't take his eyes from her.

"Almost time now. Be vigilant, Cullen."

He re-gripped the blade carefully, not wanting to cut her lest he had to, and quietly sent all of his will into her tiny body. _Don't make me kill you._

After a few long minutes, she sighed and her body relaxed into his arms. The palpable tension in the room eased.

She'd passed.

Her eyes fluttered open as Cullen tentatively lowered the blade from her pale skin. She looked at him, pupils dilated... he thought she might not really be seeing. She was more beautiful than she'd ever been, shaking slightly as if cold. Her lips smiled sleepily, almost foolishly as her eyes roved his face, and she whispered "More dreams?" Cullen stilled and prayed to the Maker and Andraste and whoever else might be listening that Gregoir didn't hear that... or at least didn't take any meaning to it. Mages sometimes babbled after their Harrowing, it was said.

_She's just babbling. She doesn't see you. That smile isn't for you._

The effort of talking seemed to take whatever energy she'd regained from the Fade before she could say another word, as she managed to look confused for half a moment before her eyes and head rolled back and she fell unconscious.

Almost lazily, Gregoir lifted an arm and indicated the door. His eyes, however, were focused on the little mage bundle that Cullen was gathering carefully.

"Take her back to her room, she'll sleep for hours at least. Inform the First Enchanter and get her phylactery moved to Denerim at once."

"Yes, Knight Commander."

Cullen started to ease her down the stairs. He felt his face tighten and he worked on making no expression... and no quick movements. She needed to sleep.

Maybe she could dream better things, and he could join her later there, in the middle of the night. For only in death and dreams could she be a woman and he be a man. The edge of the knife would always be between them when they awoke.


End file.
